A Minesweeper Kind of Mind
by Sandileina
Summary: 41st in the Rikkai Drabblethings. You all know from Akaya’s blacklist that Niou stole Marui’s first kiss. And now, in technicolour and surround sound, here it is. Enjoy!


**Disclaimer: **Here's a random fact: Area of a circle equals pi times r squared. Here's another random fact: I don't own Prince of Tennis, or any of the characters. :)

**Rating: **Well, I'm gonna say hard PG-13. It's not quite an R, unless you have a major issue with language.

**Warnings: **Shounen-ai/yaoi, overuse of the 'f' word, my own brand of twisted humour that many of you will know so well.

**Summary: **41st in the Rikkai Drabblethings. You all know from Akaya's blacklist that Niou stole Marui's first kiss. And now, in technicolour and surround sound, here it is. Enjoy!

**Author's notes:** Another Rikkai Drabblething. **You don't have to have read the ones that come before this, but it might help a bit. **The drabblething list goes:

**Times of Stress**

**Passing the Time**

**How to ask out Marui Bunta**

**Four Days Later**

**October Ice**

**Because I Love You**

**Evil**

**Further Nonsense**

**Dear Diary**

**Kind of… the same**

**100 Word Challenges**

**Driver in a Hurry, Child in a Coma**

**Doctor, doctor!**

**The Woes of Solomon Grundy**

**I'm Not Going**

**The Little Things**

**I Had To**

**He WHAT?!**

**Operation: Christmas Party**

**Being Fukubuchou**

**Once Upon a Time**

**My Brother Bunta**

**Dear Diary: Living with Niou-senpai**

**A Morning at the Pool**

**This is Love**

**SFRR**

**And So It Begins**

**Most Unexpected**

**This Is March 5th **

**No Small Wonder**

**The Last Day Of A Stage in Life**

**Back to Basics**

**Blame it On the Damn Vodka**

**Papercuts**

**The Stuff of Myths**

**Finally Understood**

**Dear Diary: Beginning the Third Year**

**Operation: Disbelief**

**May 21st **

**The Collective Threads**

**A Minesweeper Kind of Mind**

For and inspired by **TheNewKid25**, so thank them for this. Hope it's as good as you expected, dahl!

Also, a special little dedication to **Firedragongirl**. Because I feel like partially-dedicating a fic to her. n.n I'm god in my fanfics – I don't need a specific reason. ;pp

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"OH MY FUCKING GOD!!"

Niou looked up from the textbook he was making en effort to read, hugely entertained as he watched an absolutely irate Marui curse wildly at the computer screen in front of him.

"I didn't _click_ there, damnit!!" he was yelling, looking ready to tear his own hair out by the roots.

"As fun as it is to see you in pain-slash-frustration," Niou drawled, "I really have to ask, a), shut the hell up and b), what _are_ you doing?"

Marui gritted his teeth. "I have been playing minesweeper for over two hours, and I _can't_ beat this fucking level!" he ground out, finger stabbing emphatically at the cross-eyed smilie on the screen.

Putting his book down (it was technically Yagyuu's, but Niou was… borrowing it), Niou leant his chair backwards on to two legs to take a look at the screen. His eyebrow raised, and he turned a disbelieving gaze onto his best friend.

"That isn't the level you were trying to beat nearly _three years_ ago, is it?" he asked slowly.

Marui's scowl deepened. "It's so evil!" he complained. "Look how close I was, too! The mouse slipped. I can do the easy, medium and hard ones, but I don't think I've ever done this one, ever. I'm just not lucky enough."

He aimed a punch at Niou's head when the Trickster burst out laughing. It caught the side of his jaw, but only just. So Marui pulled on his ponytail instead.

"Ow," Niou cackled, more for the sake of it than out of any real pain. His mirth subsided a little and he watched with entertained eyes as Marui started again, and then again, and again.

"This _does_ bring back memories," he mused as Marui told the minesweeper smilie just what he thought of it in great detail before restarting.

"Huh?" Marui responded absently when his tirade was done. "Like what?"

A mischievous leer appeared on Niou's face, and he brought a hand up to play suggestively with a strand of red-pink hair. "Like…"

"Oh, _those_ memories." Marui suddenly cursed again as he accidentally exploded a mine, and leaned back in his seat, defeated. He sighed loudly and turned more to Niou, pushing him off the back of the computer seat and back into his own chair. He grinned a little and said, "You know, Akaya's jealous of you for that."

"Oh, I know." Niou looked smug. "Just cos he's a little boy."

"Hey, he's just as much of a man as you are, 'Haru," Marui defended. "Just a year younger, is all."

"In body. About ten in mind." He neatly avoided the expected kick with a grin and held up his hands dramatically. "Truce, truce. I guess he has his moments. Probably."

"Better believe it." Marui resumed playing again but suddenly paused to ask, looking perfectly mock-innocent, "Does Ohtori complain about the way you taste?"

Niou flipped him off and Marui laughed.

"Fun times, huh 'Haru?" he said. "Nostalgic."

"Pft. If I believed in nostalgia, I'd agree."

Marui raised an eyebrow, a near-perfect imitation of Niou. "How can you not believe in nostalgia, fool?"

"Maru, your bratling boyfriend says that curry is a state of _mind_. I'm not the fool here," Niou said dryly. He nodded towards the computer screen. "The timer's still on," he added, looking maliciously pleased as Marui cursed and dove for the mouse.

"But, yeah," he conceded, his almost thoughtful tone seeming to clash with the fierce concentration suddenly emanating from Marui. "Fun times."

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August 20th, 2004

"So who's the redhead?"

Niou yawned unconcernedly and stretched out strong arms, relaxing back into the step behind him with a sigh. "What redhead?"

Rolling his eyes, Niou's classmate, Ichikawa, snapped his fingers at him. It was a substitute for prodding him in the side – the bleach-haired, blue-eyed boy had gotten a reputation in his first couple of weeks in junior high of tending to knock out anyone who touched him so casually. "The redhead you were hanging out with at break."

"Oh, that redhead. His class did the History test yesterday, so I was getting answers off him."

Ichikawa considered this, then grinned. "Ah. So he's your little cheat geek, then?" he asked.

"Pretty much." Niou pushed off the bench as the bell sounded through the humid air, and he strolled down the little gravel path towards the main building of Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Chuugakkou.

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Well, looked like Niou was serving detention in the library again. Damn; he'd be missing practice and the chance to be around that Yukimura guy. There was something, Niou reflected as he stared at the library double doors, something infinitely soothing about that boy. It wasn't just the fact that he was the youngest in the year or that he was nice to everyone. It was something indefinable in the way he _smiled_ in that oddly vague yet sharp way… If that even made sense. It somehow made the uncaring, cold Niou want to be around him even if it meant committing to the tennis club for a while.

"Well? Go in, Niou-kun."

Glowering darkly at the annoyed-looking teacher, Niou almost considered refusing just for the hell of it before deciding to avoid the risk of getting a detention tomorrow afternoon as well.

He pushed open the double doors and headed inside, sitting grumpily down at a table and watching the teacher set down a couple of textbooks out in front of him along with some lined paper.

"You can go when you've finished writing out both your homework essay and an apology for being so rude," she said firmly. "Bring it up to my office when you're done."

"Fine," Niou shrugged. He smirked a little as the teacher decided to let that one go, walking stiffly off and leaving him alone in the library.

Exhaling loudly, he opened the first textbook and scanned the contents page. Oh, what fun it looked. He decided to do the essay and apology quickly within the next fifteen minutes or so, go down to tennis practice for the remaining forty or so minutes, then bring the essay and apology to his Geography teacher's office afterwards.

As Niou wrote out the title of the essay at the top of the page, he suddenly paused and looked up. He could have sworn he'd heard something. Like… a clicking noise?

Yes; there it was again. As his ears grew accustomed to the quiet of the empty library, they latched on to the repetitive but arrhythmic clicks.

Curious and welcoming the chance to put off the essay for a couple more minutes, Niou got up and started walking around the bookshelves, trying to find the source of the clicking.

"Damn!!"

Jumping at the sudden exclamation, Niou rounded another bookshelf to find himself looking at the computer section. The metaphorical lightbulb by his head lit up with a ping – the clicks had been mouse clicks.

"It's you," he said, surprised.

Sure enough, the boy at the desk was the same one that Niou had asked for the History answers earlier that day. He looked over his shoulder to see who it was, before ducking his head in a quick greeting and turning his attention back to the screen. "Hey."

"Thought I was alone in here," Niou remarked, coming over. "What're you doing in here?"

"I come here sometimes to use the computers. The one we have at home gets monopolised by 'Tousan." Violet eyes tracked the cursor unblinkingly. "You?"

"Geography detention, if it's any of your business. Forgot to do the homework last night." Niou's eyebrow raised a little as he watched the boy play Minesweeper, each game lasting an average of thirty seconds before a bomb was hit and he had to start again.

"You're not very good, are you?" he said with a small sneer.

The boy looked up at him, clearly annoyed by the comment. "If it was purely a skill game then I wouldn't have a problem, but it needs luck as well and I happen to have bad luck. So you can fuck _right_ off," he scowled.

Taken aback by the sharp reply and especially by the last sentence, Niou folded his arms defiantly. "Who'd have thought such a good little boy would know words like that?" he said nastily. "Does your mama know?"

Niou was taken aback again when the boy suddenly grinned at him. "I'm older than you are, I bet," he said. "You're still twelve, aren't you?"

"You're in the second year?" Well, damn. Guy was older than he looked.

"No. First. But my birthday's in April, so I'm one of the oldest in the year. So you can't call me 'a good little boy', cos I'm not little, and I'm not that good either. I'm just not a total nutter like you are." The boy quickly raised his hands in a truce sign as Niou's scowl darkened ominously. "Joking, joking."

Niou very briefly considered punching him anyway, but decided that that would only prove the boy right.

"I'm Marui Bunta." Marui held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you. Again."

He raised his eyebrows but shrugged and didn't comment when Niou's hands stayed where they were and the other pointedly didn't introduce himself. "Fair enough," he muttered, turning back to the computer and starting another game.

Feeling somehow as though he'd lost face during the course of the conversation, Niou waited until a couple of games had passed before sitting down in another computer chair and shoving at Marui's shoulder. "Move," he said, taking over the mouse and restarting.

Marui watched in growing incredulity as Niou proceeded to neatly navigate the entire minefield, flagging the final bomb and leaning back in the chair with a very smug grin. "153 seconds," he said.

There was a couple of seconds in which Marui stared at the screen, open mouthed, before he looked over at a pleased Niou and said slowly, "I can't decide whether to hate you or admire you for the rest of your life."

"Most people have that problem," Niou snickered. "They tend to go with hate. I'm abrasive," he added, sounding rather proud of the statement.

"I can tell." Marui stared at the screen some more, then pushed at Niou's shoulder. "Let me try again."

Feeling better about the world in general, Niou let the contact go and rolled the chair over a space so that Marui could get in front of the computer again.

"You do your hair yourself?" he asked idly.

"Mm hm. Why?"

"Just wondering. Cos my classmates know you as 'the cute redhead'."

Marui frowned. "It's not red. It's pink." But then he reconsidered, and said reluctantly, "Well, it's meant to be. I guess it did turn out more red than pink, but…" He trailed off with a shrug.

"Oh?" Red, pink… it was all the same to the completely colour-blind Niou. "Weird colour for a guy to dye their hair."

"Real men wear pink," Marui quoted, before laughing a little and saying, "Besides, it's meant to be kind of a not-so-subtle hint to my parents."

"… To buy you some decent hair dye?"

"No. That I'm gay. They like the whole pink stereotype, see, so I'm seeing how long it takes them to get it."

Niou raised his eyebrows. "Well, you won't get far if it's red."

"True. I'll get it done properly like, next weekend or something."

Fair enough. Niou shrugged and got up. "Hey, come help me with my essay," he said.

Marui snorted, clicking away. "You wish."

Again, fair enough. "Fuck you, then." There wasn't any of the usual bite; Niou decided that he rather liked the weird redhead – or should that be pinkhead? Either way, Niou didn't particularly feel the need to kick him until a rib cracked, so it was all good.

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"You should get your hair actually dyed pink," Niou said, looking contemptuous. "It's just stupid otherwise."

"Well, you should grow yours longer," Marui retorted. "Have a ponytail." It was about four pm – like yesterday, Niou had a detention, this time from his English teacher for 'disruptive behaviour', and Marui was using the computer to play Minesweeper.

"I like it short, so fuck off."

"I might like mine red."

"Yeah, but you said the whole point was so that your parents get a clue about which end of the bakery you buy from."

Marui laughed at the expression, being careful not to choke on the gum he was chewing. "Which what now? Never heard that one before."

"Good, cos I made it up." Niou turned the page of his textbook, trying to try to try to cared about the interesting grammatical structure of English sentences.

"Which side do _you_ buy from, then?" Marui asked curiously.

"None of your business." Niou wrote half a character before chucking his pen down with a clatter on the table and crossing his arms, annoyed with the pointless exercise. He _knew_ how English grammar worked – he just refused to give the teacher the satisfaction of knowing he'd actually taught him something. "Guess."

Marui knew that whatever he said, the other boy was likely to take some sort of offence. He seemed annoyingly volatile. Or maybe that was just him being 'abrasive'. Still, Niou hadn't hurt him yet, even though Marui was pretty sure he'd said and done worse things to Niou than most of the people that got attacked by him.

"Mm… Gay?" he guessed. The only grounds he really had for the guess were that Niou hadn't reacted at all to Marui's declaration of his own preferences, but it was as good a guess as any.

"Nope."

"Oh, straight then."

"Nope." Niou looked smug again.

Marui was momentarily confused before looking sheepish and saying, "Oh, yeah, bi. I always forget that exists."

"Yeah. I think, anyway." Niou contemplated Marui thoughtfully for a moment. "So you ever kiss a guy before?" he asked, leering lopsidedly.

"Nuh uh. Not properly."

"What, really? Then how do you know you're really gay?"

Marui wrinkled his nose. "Well, I've never fancied a girl like, ever. But I used to fancy this guy in the year above me a few months ago. And there were a couple of others I used to have little crushes on. And come on, I'm not exactly the most straight-acting guy in the world, am I?"

"You can have camp straight guys," Niou pointed out.

Marui stuck his tongue out at him. "Whatever. I'm not straight."

"I still think you don't know for sure until you actually kiss 'em," Niou shrugged.

Grinning, Marui shook his head and returned to his Minesweeper game. "You offering, or something?" he joked.

"If you like." The nonchalant answer caught Marui by surprise, and he turned his head to look suspiciously at Niou, not sure if he was being serious or not.

Niou met the look levelly and gave him a little smirk. "You wanna know for sure, right? No point in missing out on the chicks for a year then finding out kissing a guy totally squicks you out."

Violet eyes narrowed, thoughtful.

"Unless, you know, you're too shy," Niou goaded. "That's fine. The world needs pretty little schoolgirls like you once in a while."

… Alright, Marui might be the first to admit he was far from straight-acting, but he was still fucking masculine when he wanted to be, goddamnit.

"Fuck you," he said, eyes flashing defensively. "I'm not shy."

"Nah, I'm only offering a kiss," Niou smirked. "I only like masculine guys."

It took Marui a second to work out that Niou was talking about Marui's use of the phrase 'fuck you'. "I'm masculine!" he protested hotly.

"Masculine as in you _don't_ try to dye your hair pink," Niou said pointedly.

Getting out of the computer chair, Marui spat out his gum into the nearby bin and sat down on the tabletop. He scowled determinedly down at Niou. "So come on, then," he said.

Content in his victory, Niou didn't mock him any further. He stood up so that they were the same height and tangled a hand into the hair at the back of Marui's head. Marui looked like he wanted to protest the gesture, but he didn't say anything. Grinning toothily at him, Niou leant in and captured his mouth. He wasn't gentle, and Marui almost pulled away to complain before remembering that he was supposed to be defending his pride here. So he stayed put.

He started slightly as Niou licked wetly at his lower lip and then the upper, lazy but insistent, and Marui obediently parted them slightly. He stifled a surprised noise as Niou took the cue to deepen the kiss, and Marui tentatively touched his own tongue to Niou's experimentally.

The kiss lasted a couple more seconds before Marui finally broke it, pulling a face. "You taste like smoke," he complained.

Niou snorted. "You taste like artificial apple."

"I like apple-flavoured gum, what do you expect?"

"I smoke, what do you expect?"

They locked eyes challengingly for a moment, mocking blue to stubborn violet, before they both burst into spontaneous laughter. Niou's started off as purely derisive, but it gradually shifted balance to something a little lighter.

"Get off," Marui laughed, knocking away Niou's hand and getting down off the table. "You're fucking _weird_, you know that?"

"You know, I've knocked people out for less than that," Niou said.

"My point exactly." Marui headed on over back to the computer, getting out another piece of sugar-free gum and popping it into his mouth. "Thanks for the experiment, though," he said with a grin. "Proved me right."

Niou pulled out a cigarette packet from his pocket and lit one up in answer to Marui's gum, feeling oddly competitive with the grinning boy.

"Well done for having your first kiss with a guy," he said dryly.

"First kiss period, actually," Marui said, flashing his peace sign. "Never kissed a girl either."

"Seriously?"

"Yep."

"Huh. Fair enough," Niou said, looking deliberately bored now. "Well, I'm heading off now. Screw the detention, I'll just do it tomorrow." He started out of the library, one hand waving sarcastically over his shoulder. "See you around."

"Unfortunately," Marui teased, quickly adding, "Joking!" on to the end in case Niou didn't get it. If he heard he didn't show it, disappearing behind the tall, heavy bookshelves towards the door.

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Back to June 29th, 2007

"How come you're so fucking _lucky_?" Marui demanded as Niou cleared the Minesweeper level again. "Seriously, it's not even _funny_. You always get coin flips and stuff right too. It's not fair."

"Luck's a state of mind. Unlike curry. But I was unlucky enough to wind up with you as a sorry excuse for a best friend," Niou retorted. Even those who didn't know him very well could have told that he didn't mean it, though. "You know, only you and the bratling deliberately push me to the limits of annoyance. And even then the bratling only does it because he's too idiotic to realise that I might end up killing him someday."

That made Marui laugh. "Stop pretending to be such a damn hard-ass, 'Haru," he said, kicking Niou's shin. "There's no-one in here to show off to. You wouldn't kill Akaya no matter how much he annoyed you."

"Wanna bet?" Niou muttered darkly, but his eyes were lazily content.

"Gah. I've had enough of Minesweeper," Marui announced. "For today, anyway. Want company to Ohtori's house?"

"Sure, if you promise to leave straight away and not hang around to annoy us."

"Alright." Marui reached over to shut down the computer and the two set off out of the library, bickering in quieter tones than normal, and anyone who knew them would have seen clearly the parts of Marui's personality and mannerisms that had rubbed off on Niou, and the parts of Niou's personality and mannerisms that had rubbed off on Marui.

They'd probably never admit it, especially not Niou, but best friends don't get much closer than that.

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Rikkai Daigaku Fuzoku Chuugakkou: _Probably_ Rikkai's full title, I'd have thought. Junior high section, I mean. The high school's called something slightly different.

'Tousan: Short for 'Otousan', which means father. So 'Tousan is more like 'dad'.

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Sandy: -.-;; This was meant to be a short Drabblething about Marui's first kiss. Instead, it exploded into this monster examining a bit further the friendship between 'Haru and Maru. I blame YOU, **TheNewKid25**!

Please, please leave a review and reward my efforts? Pwease? I'd really appreciate it. Questions, comments, suggestions, etc… all are welcomed and loved. So don't be shy, give me a try! ;pp

Until next time!


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